Around The World in 80 Dishes takes you to Russia with a demonstration of a recipe for borscht, prepared by chef Eve Felder of The Culinary Institute of America.

Recipe

A sk most anyone to name a Russian dish and chances are high that borscht will be the first one they mention. What's the lead item on the menu at the Russian Tea Room restaurant in New York City? Traditional Tea Room Red Borscht. Without a doubt, borscht, or borshch as many Russian cookbooks spell it, is one of the most iconic Russian foods. The passion for this hearty soup made from beets cuts across all classes and economic levels in Russia as well as in neighboring countries in Eastern and Central Europe. In fact, the Ukrainians lay claim to being the original creators of the soup.

Red beets are the heart of borscht. Beets are often called the red meat of the vegetable kingdom, not only because of their intense color but also because they are loaded with iron, manganese, and many other minerals, as well as plenty of vitamins, among them folate, a B vitamin whose importance is increasingly being recognized.

But while borscht must contain beets to be considered borscht, there are "as many recipes for borshch as there are grandmothers," writes Lynn Visson in The Russian Heritage Cookbook. (One of those countless Russian grandmothers belongs to Epicurious.com editor-in-chief Tanya Steel, who has fond memories of her grandmother teaching her to make borscht when she was a child.) Visson includes 12 different versions of borscht in her book. And even Anton Chekhov, the 19th-century Russian playwright and author, had his own ideal version of the soup. In his short story "The Siren," the secretary to a group of hungry judges describes the perfect borscht to sate his hunger: "[A] borshch prepared with sugar beets, Ukrainian style, you know the way, my friend, with ham and country sausages. It should be served with sour cream, of course, and a sprinkling of fresh parsley and dill."

Borscht is sometimes thought of as a cold soup, but in fact there are both hot and cold variations. The hot versions tend to have a meaty base, whether made with just a meat stock or chunky with pieces of long-simmered beef or pork and served with sour cream on the side. The cold versions are often vegetarian—no meat stock, just water—and presented with the sour cream already stirred into the soup so that the dish takes on a vibrant, almost fluorescent magenta hue.

In our video, Culinary Institute of America chef Eve Felder shows Steel how she makes her version, a simple and straightforward hot borscht that's chockablock with vegetables: onions, garlic, celery, carrots, leeks, savoy cabbage, and of course beets, all simmered to tenderness in a beef stock. Chef Felder likes to grate the raw beets directly into the soup, but acknowledges that it would easier and faster to shred them in a food processor. (And she claims that beets don't stain your hands as much when they're raw as when they're cooked.)

Besides beets, vinegar may just be the most important element in borscht. Not only does vinegar's tartness balance the sweetness of the beets and other vegetables—satisfying that innate human attraction to the pairing of sweet and sour—but more important, Felder explains, it stabilizes the red pigment, called anthocyanin, that's in beets and red cabbage. Without it, the color would fade or turn a weird purple. Felder prefers to add the vinegar right after the beets go into the soup, but other recipes add it later.

Once all the vegetables are simmering, the soup doesn't take long to cook—grating the beets speeds up the process significantly—only about 20 to 25 minutes total, which makes it an easy and feasible main course for a weeknight. Add some hearty pumpernickel bread and you've got dinner. But don't forget the crowning glory to a bowl of borscht: a generous dollop of sour cream and sprigs of fresh dill. That final flourish makes it sing!